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Arkansas Thinks Big in Hiring New Coach

John L. Smith has run with the bulls in Pamplona, skydived from 14,000 feet and climbed a peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. In the football world, he is known as an eccentric, whose legacy as a head coach ranges from being an innovator of the spread offense to telling his Louisville team at halftime of a bowl game that he was leaving for another job.

Smith is no stranger to bizarre situations. And on Monday, he joined another one, agreeing to take over as the Arkansas football coach for 10 months to replace the fired Bobby Petrino. Smith, 63, who will make $850,000 for this pinch-coaching hitch, quit as head coach at Weber State before coaching a game.

For a coach known for his extremes — in comebacks and in squandered leads — the move offers a high risk-reward. Arkansas, where Smith was an assistant for the previous three seasons, has enough talent and a schedule so favorable that there are visions of a national title in Fayetteville.

But if things do not go as planned, Smith could be back looking for work next spring. The only thing that is certain with Smith is that his stint will not be boring.

“I think what he’ll bring is an attitude of: ‘We’re not here to play it safe. We’re here to try and win the game and do it aggressively,’ ” said Smith’s brother, Doug Smith, who is a former high school coach and the father of the N.F.L. quarterback Alex Smith.

After Petrino’s firing this month amid a scandal, Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long faced a conundrum. He could hire from the outside, a safer long-term move, or bring in a temporary coach so the program could attempt to retain its momentum from 2011, when it went 11-2. In a move an on-field gambler like Smith could relate to, Long doubled down on the short term.

Photo

John L. Smith in 2006 at Michigan State. He spent the last three years at Arkansas before leaving for Weber State in December.Credit
John Beale/Associated Press

Because Smith coached with Petrino at Louisville and Idaho before joining him at Arkansas, few significant changes are likely to be made schematically. With Heisman Trophy contenders in quarterback Tyler Wilson and tailback Knile Davis, Long decided not to overhaul an offense that led the Southeastern Conference in scoring per game last season (36.77).

“Coach Smith understands the commitment our players have made to building upon that success and meeting the goals that have been set for the upcoming season,” Long said. “I also have a tremendous amount of confidence in our assistant coaches and believe that under Coach Smith’s leadership they will be able to continue to flourish in their current roles.”

Smith has a career record of 132-86 and coached six conference champions. But he is remembered more for quirks like a halftime interview while coaching at Michigan State in which he excoriated, in colorful language, his assistants for botching a field-goal attempt. Incidents like that stand out with Smith, but Doug Smith predicts that his brother will be more dull with the news media and boosters.

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But Smith is the coach who led Michigan State on a historic comeback from a 35-point deficit against Northwestern in 2006 and went on to lose his job that year, in part, because the Spartans squandered too many leads.

With Smith, the only surprises will be if there are no surprises. Doug Smith said that his brother cut his salary by more than half to leave Arkansas as an assistant in December to return to Weber State, his alma mater, to be the head coach. Doug Smith said that his brother was the type of hands-on coach whom he could see finishing his career at a high school.

“He wanted to get back to doing what is fun about being in this profession,” Doug Smith said. “Working with kids on the field and coaching football. Obviously, too, once you become a head coach, you do have a passion for being the guy that makes the decisions.”

John L. Smith has found himself in that position once again, in a job with national title stakes. And now, he will be running with the bulls in the SEC, and it should not be boring to watch.

A version of this article appears in print on April 24, 2012, on Page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: Arkansas Thinks Big In Hiring New Coach. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe